This invention relates generally to refrigerator units for food and beverage product of the type known as merchandisers, and particularly to a merchandiser of a convenient small size having a horizontal air curtain for maintaining the product at a desired temperature.
Refrigerator units having a storage cabinet have been used in supermarkets and other public facilities for many years. Such units are usually provided with a sliding cover which must be opened to access frozen product stored within the cabinet. Alternatively, units having an open top are known which provide a layer of cold air on the product. Such units, which provide direct access to the product are revealed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,446,686 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,463,104.
An early system which provides a cooling cycle and a defrost cycle is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,425,236 which discloses a refrigerating system with an air control system which passes air over the top of product as part of a cooling cycle and returns air as part of a defrost cycle using an air by-pass system.
A later development is that known as an air curtain refrigerated unit which is represented by U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,983. This patent discloses a refrigerated case having an upper display for food products at a temperature above freezing and a lower display for products at a temperature below freezing. The upper display is maintained in a cool condition by a vertical airstream; the lower display is maintained in a cold condition by an air stream projected across the access opening.
None of the units described in the reference patents is intended to provide easy access to a beverage container of relatively small size which maintains product at a temperature above freezing with easy access to the consumer.
The present merchandiser air curtain system overcomes these problems in a manner not revealed in the known prior art.
This merchandiser is arranged to provide a horizontal air curtain which passes over the product to maintain the product in a cool but not frozen condition. The relatively small size unit has an open top which provides ready access to customers who can reach into the merchandiser and retrieve product without discomfort since product is maintained in a cooled rather than a frozen condition and the air curtain is maintained at a suitable temperature to avoid discomfort to a customer reaching through it.
This merchandiser with horizontal air curtain comprises an insulated product compartment having an open access top; an evaporator compartment having an evaporator therein; a compressor compartment having a compressor therein, supplying refrigerant to the evaporator; and a fan compartment having a fan therein and communicating with the evaporator compartment. An air circulation means is provided having an upper discharge outlet at one side of the product compartment communicating with the evaporator compartment and an upper return inlet at the other side of the product compartment across from the upper outlet and an air circulation passage. The air circulation passage has opposed ends, one end communicating with the inlet and the other end communicating with the fan compartment. The outlet discharges cool air from the evaporator compartment into the return inlet to provide a constant stream of circulating air across the top of the product compartment when the fan is operating, sufficient to provide an air curtain insulating the product compartment from ambient air and maintain the product in a cool condition.
It is an aspect of the invention to provide that the product compartment includes a front wall, a rear wall, opposed end walls and a bottom wall, the distance between the front and rear walls being substantially less than the distance between the end walls. It is another aspect of this invention to provide that the distance between the front and rear walls is about one half of the distance between the end walls.
It is yet another aspect of the invention to provide that the evaporation compartment includes a vertical panel adjacent the rear wall having a plurality of vents defining the upper outlet.
It is still another aspect of the invention to provide that the air circulation passage includes a vertical panel disposed adjacent the front wall and having a plurality of perforations defining the upper inlet.
It is another aspect of the invention to provide that the air circulation passage includes a horizontal panel disposed adjacent the bottom wall.
It is an aspect of this invention to provide that a product holding rack adapted to receive bottle containers is disposed in said insulated product compartment including a plurality of vertical partitions.
It is another aspect of the invention to provide that the vertical partitions are provided by grills held in spring biased relation within said product compartment.
It is yet another aspect of the invention to provide that the product holding rack includes an inclined grill for holding bottle containers in inclined relation within said product compartment.
It is still another aspect of the invention to provide that the product holding rack includes a vertical U-shaped grill disposed adjacent said rear wall and having an opening providing access to said fan compartment.
It is an aspect of the invention to provide that a product holding rack is disposed in said insulated product compartment adapted to hold a plurality of vertical columns of bottles in single depth rows inclined to the horizontal to facilitate customer removal.
This horizontal air curtain merchandiser is relatively simple to manufacture, easy to maintain and replenish and efficient in operation.